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Album Details

• Artist: R.e.m.
• Album: Reckoning
• Label: I.R.S.
• Year of Release: 1984
• ME Rating: Indie Classic
• Reviewed by: toddlevinsonfrank on 2009-08-26

r.e.m.'s first album was called murmur and when the second one starts you think maybe it could be called hypermumble but it's not it's called reckoning which is a pretty cool title i guess and it's a really cool album. the guitars are jangly but not annoying and the melodies are catchy but this isn't pop music this is cool college radio music from back when such a thing still existed before they started calling it alternative rock before alternative rock became so popular that by definition it was then pop. it's still hard to hear what the singer is talking about but he mentions swallowing the ocean, a short-haired boy or girl (i'm not sure), catacombs, a camera, this season, a handshake is worthy, the tower, alone in a crowd, and during one song he just keeps repeating that he's sorry. the one where he says "i'm sorry" is a lot of people's favorite song from this album but i grew up in rockville, md, and went to rockville high school so of course we all thought the song called "don't go back to rockville" was the coolest song since in some way it was possible that it might be about us even though we kinda knew that it probably wasn't. this album came out in 1984 and ever since then every band in america and most other countries tried to sound just like this album whether they knew it or not except for all the bands that tried to make sure they didn't sound like this album. in 2009 the people that make the records made a new version of r.e.m.'s reckoning that they cleaned up and made sound all pretty even though the spirit of the sound of this album is kinda scruffy and off the cuff to begin with it still sounded great after it was all dressed up in fancy sound quality because it was always beautiful on the inside.

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